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> Most states are run on a deficit This is not true. All the states except Vermont have a legal requirement of a balanced budget. https://www.ncsl.org/researc

• slg 6y ago
  I phrased that poorly. However there is also a difference between what these rules require and what you are stating. A proposed balanced budget isn't the same as a balanced budget in practice. And to quote your linked article: >State balanced budget requirements in practice refer to operating budgets and not to capital budgets. Operating budgets include annual expenditures--such items as salaries and wages, aid to local governments, health and welfare benefits, and other expenditures that are repeated from year to year. State capital expenditure, mainly for land, highways, and buildings, is largely financed by debt It is much easier to balance the budget when you ignore all those capital expenses. Also there are other complexities involved. You can look at what happened in Illinois a few years back as an example. They basically didn't have an official state budget for multiple years. That didn't stop them from racking up costs and debt. It contributed to a debt crisis that the state is still trying to claw its way out of.